News
AT&T has launched its U-verse TV service in northeastern Illinois, marking the largest U-verse rollout to date and making some competition for Comcast in the area.
AT&T’s Advanced TV services include AT&T U-verse TV, AT&T Homezone service – which combines satellite TV and high-speed Internet – and Dish Network satellite service. The telco said it offers consumers all-digital programming and “more high-definition (HD) channels than cable” with its 100 percent IP-based TV service.
"We're ready to show the state of Illinois why AT&T U-verse TV really is cooler than cable,” said Steve Mitchell, AT&T’s VP and GM for Illinois. “With AT&T Advanced TV, consumers across northeastern Illinois have a video choice that gives them unmatched features, great value, and the content they want – like Big Ten Network."
U-verse had 126,000 subscribers at the end of Q3 2007; at the end of Q4, that number had increased to 231,000. Adding in satellite viewers, the company had a total of 2.3 million video subscribers.
Installs are running at a rate of 12,000 per week – ahead of the company’s target of 10,000 per week.
U-verse is now available in 41 markets, and soon the telco will begin deploying U-verse in the Southeast – the former BellSouth territories.
AT&T plans to be able to deliver a second HD stream and introduce a personal video recorder (PVR) by mid-year. Also, before year’s end, the company expects to start channel bonding to buy more bandwidth.
In December, the company said it expected to have more than one million U-verse subscribers by the end of the year, and to pass 30 million homes by the end of 2010.
And last week, AT&T said it had finished testing the voice component of the U-verse service, finally adding the third element of the triple-play that U-verse was designed to deliver.
AT&T will start by expanding the availability of VoIP among U-verse customers in Detroit, the test bed for U-verse VoIP. The service will continue to expand to more local customers and additional markets in 2008.
More Broadband Direct:
• Bright House, Concurrent part of largest Start Over deployment to date
• Time Warner Cable launches navigation Web site
• Wireless, data divisions pump up Verizon’s revenues
• AT&T completes largest U-verse rollout to date
• TVN rolls out interactive VOD tool
• Zodiac introduces new mobile search engine
